Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Theresa Chen, and I'm the Midstream and Refining Analyst here at Barclays. It is my pleasure to introduce our next company, Williams. Joining me from Williams is President and CEO Chad Zamarin. Welcome.
Thanks, Theresa. Thanks.
All right. I think we're going to have some slides up here in a bit, but I'll go ahead and just get started. I'm going to give some kind of prepared remarks around our presentation, but also leave time for question and answer as well. Hopefully, you know the takeaways from the discussion are pretty clear and simple. If you think about Williams and our performance over the last several years, we've seen consistent earnings growth. I'll show that the company has grown for 12 years consistently, but over the last five years, we've grown on a compound annual growth rate, our earnings by 9% on average each and every year. Really phenomenal growth delivered by the team. You can see that we've really built a track record of strong project execution. Our return on invested capital over that five-year period has been 20%.
If you think about our ability to invest capital in low-multiple, high-return projects, I think we've demonstrated a great track record of achieving that. You know when we look forward, posting great results over the last five years, the company is in as strong a position as it's ever been. As we look forward, we see even stronger fundamentals that are supporting the business. We've anchored the strategy around the natural gas value chain and around the fundamentals supporting robust demand for natural gas. You think about coal retirements continuing, LNG demand growth, and now power generation, recognizing the need for natural gas both to support the intermittency of renewables, but also increasingly to meet the need for speed for the growth of data centers and the next generation of technology.
That sets us up for a pretty, what we think is, exciting path ahead and a very large ongoing opportunity for growth. I'll show that you will see a deep backlog of high-return projects with over 13 Bcf/day of transmission projects that we see in the next generation of opportunities and a backlog that we're pursuing of 6 GW of power innovation projects. I'll talk a little bit more about our power innovation efforts. Again, positioned as a strong team and do want to also note, having just gone through a leadership transition, the team is settled. Most of the team is the same as it was before our transition. We've added my backfill from external, but the team is as best positioned, I think, as could be hoped and ready to take on this next generation of growth.
On that front, I'm going to talk just a little bit about fundamentals kind of supporting our business. I think no one has been more focused on the natural gas value chain than Williams. At the end of the day, what we know is that energy needs to be reliable, needs to be affordable, needs to be clean. Those have been the three primary guideposts for us as we set our targets towards how we're going to anchor the company and how we're going to focus on growth going forward. Importantly, a fourth element has emerged, and that's the need for speed. You think about the United States over the last 25 years. In the year 2000, you could go into a Walmart and buy virtually anything made in America. The United States was a third of global manufacturing capacity. Today, we're less than half that.
In the year 2000, the United States was by far the dominant energy producer, electricity producer on the planet. We haven't grown electricity production in the United States in 25 years. During that same period of time, China has grown its electricity production by 7x . What we know now, China is about a third of global manufacturing and is now the dominant producer of electricity around the world. We have some catching up to do as a country, but we think that sets us up for a really important next generation of opportunity as we seek reliable, affordable, clean, and now quick, dispatchable energy to support this next generation of technology. That's really where we've anchored our strategy around the natural gas value chain. You think about power demand in the United States.
We expect power demand to grow by 4x over the next decade what it did over the last decade. Significant growth is driven by data centers and artificial intelligence and also the backing up of renewables and renewable intermittency. What we know is that natural gas has been the solution in the United States to both decarbonize our power generation systems, driving down emissions as we displaced coal, but also importantly, in any market where we've increased the penetration of renewables, we've had to grow natural gas power generation and importantly, peak natural gas power generation to address the intermittency of wind and solar. Any market in the United States that has any significant renewables, the only reason why it works is because we've got natural gas capacity that picks up the slack when the sun sets and the wind slows down.
Also, LNG demand, we know that just with what's under construction today, we will about double LNG exports and LNG demand from the United States by 2035. That will continue to be the largest growth driver for natural gas demand in the United States over the next 10 years. Clear line of sight to that growth ahead. Importantly, we still operate a lot of coal here in the United States. We've got to continue to engineer energy solutions for the rest of the world. The world will burn more coal this year than in any year in the history of the planet. In fact, China will burn 17 x the amount of coal that we will burn here in the United States. We still operate almost 200 coal plants here in the United States. Just in our footprint alone, about a third of those coal plants are operating.
If you converted those plants to natural gas just along our footprint, it would be equivalent from an emissions benefit perspective of eliminating 100 million cars off the road each and every day. That is a technology we know works. We can convert natural gas power generation from coal to natural gas. We can convert coal power generation to natural gas. We can reduce emissions. Just along our footprint would have the emissions benefit of eliminating 100 million cars off the road each and every day. Imagine how long it's going to take us to electrify 100 million cars. Even then, what will be the energy mix that we use to power that electricity? The opportunity remains incredibly robust here in the United States for a whole set of reasons. What that sets us up for is a long-term sustainable growth strategy.
A lot of great growth posted over the last five years. Talked about a 9% compound annual growth rate from an earnings growth perspective. Similar growth from cash available from operations. We've grown our earnings per share by 14% compound annual growth rate over that five-year period. Importantly, we have reduced the leverage, improved the balance sheet. When you look at the model of Williams today, here we go. We have slides. You missed all the best slides. I'm sure you'll have these available for you. Just jumping into the slides, I talked about the phenomenal growth we've seen over the last five years. During that period of time, we've been through some challenging cycles. I think if you look back over the history of the company, you can see over the last 10 years, we've been able to grow steadily through a lot of different disruptive cycles.
We've positioned the company for even, I'd say, better days ahead when you think about the ability to demonstrate that kind of growth with good market fundamentals. As we look ahead, we see even stronger market fundamentals and a much stronger balance sheet and capacity to invest as we move forward. Where we find ourselves today, you can see on the transmission side, the next era of development for Williams is going to be very demand-focused. You're going to continue to see us targeting demand pull opportunities. In the near term, that's going to mean a pretty significant expansion of our transmission business connecting to LNG exports, power generation, industrial reshoring, and manufacturing here in the United States, as well as power generation and power innovation projects. There's going to be a very keen focus on growing our transmission infrastructure.
The great news for us is that we know as we continue to connect demand to the system, over time, supply will have to respond. It will have to fill to meet that demand. That's how we turn on, over time, our gathering and processing business to fill the demand we're connecting to our transmission and downstream business. You can see here that in 2018, we had about 20 Bcf/day of transmission capacity across our pipeline systems. We're forecasting that by the end of the decade, just based on what's sanctioned and under development today, we will grow to 38 Bcf/day of transmission capacity. The increase in demand connectivity to our system is significant. You'll see that play out over the next five years and beyond. There's a very clear line of sight to very strong fundamentals for transmission capacity growth over the next five years.
Here are some of the projects that are going to lead to that. What I think is really unique and exciting about our story is if you look already through the end of the decade, we've pretty well crystallized a lot of the growth that's going to be foundational and really drive this next generation of opportunity. You can see still here through the end of 2025, we've got several growth projects that will continue to come online. This is an important year for us. We've updated our guidance during our last earnings call to $7.75 billion of earnings at the midpoint. That's a $350 million increase in guidance from where it was set originally, so significant growth. When we deliver on our guidance this year, that will be, again, building on that last five years' compound annual growth rate.
That'll be a 9% year-over-year, 2024 to 2025, step up in growth. You think about turning on additional projects here through the end of 2025, 2026, we've got another great set of projects, including our first power innovation project. That'll be a very quick turn to cash flow from investment. You see in 2027 our Southeast Supply Enhancement Project. This is the largest project in the history of the company from an earnings contribution perspective. We continue to see projects like it. It's a project on the eastern side of the Transco system where power demand is calling upon our infrastructure to supply this next generation of need. We announced just a few weeks ago that our Northeast Supply Enhancement Project had commercial agreements that were signed. Just last week, we received our reinstatement of our FERC certificate.
That will be an important project for right here in New York City, a project that just a year ago, I'm not sure anyone would have had in the model for us to deliver. As you even look out into 2030, you see our Power Express Project. All the way through the 2030s, we've already crystallized significant expansion projects. You will continue to see us layer in projects between now and then. We expect to achieve, similar to what we have in the last five years, very strong returns on these investments, low build multiples, and high return on invested capital. As we look ahead, even beyond the projects that are defined and announced, we see a significant growing backlog of additional projects.
Just here on the transmission side, in addition to the projects that I showed, in addition to achieving that 38 Bcf/day of capacity by the end of the decade, we're working an additional 13 Bcf/day of transmission projects in our backlog that we're working to turn into sanctioned projects. Over $14 billion of additional investment opportunity just with what we see here and now. The teams are constantly refreshing that pipeline of opportunities. We believe we'll continue to see our transmission systems called upon to deliver even more going forward. Importantly, I think a lot of excitement and discussion is around data centers and artificial intelligence. Huge credit to the team at Williams. We established a power innovation team about 18 months ago, and it actually wasn't even initially focused on data centers.
It was just the recognition that natural gas power generation is going to be critical to electrification, to supporting renewables, and to decarbonizing the energy mix here in the United States. As we've proven over the last 15 years, natural gas displacing coal is the most powerful decarbonization solution. We know that we still have a lot of opportunity. It was important for us to follow that fundamental and establish ourselves in a position where we could capture opportunities to meet that need for clean, reliable, affordable, and now, importantly, meet the need for speed. We had previously announced $1.6 billion of investment in our power innovation organization. Just this past week, we've added an additional project. This is a little late breaking. The materials were already finalized, but we will have upscaled this to about $2 billion of investment.
We've also said that we expect to announce a couple more projects here in the second half of the year, and by the end of the year. I think it is a real testament to the team truly going to where the customer's needs are, designing our solutions to meet the needs of the customer. In the case of upsizing this first project, it's truly the customer recognizing that the unique design of their systems calls for a unique service that we can provide. We've been able to add to the scope of our projects, increase that by another $400 million, and actually improve the economics for this next scope item that we've added.
You can see that we're pursuing another 6 GW of projects in this power innovation space. We think it is a very exciting opportunity for us to bring what is a pretty unique set of capabilities at Williams. Over the last several years, we've put together truly every piece of the natural gas value chain. Our ability to package that as a power generation solution for energy-intensive businesses is pretty unique and I think pretty important. I think there's a lot of learning still happening, a lot of evolution, but the original assumption that we would just plug into the grid for all of our power generation needs, I think, was a little premature. If you think about large energy input systems, it's very common here in the U.S. that those would control their own energy input.
The last generation of data centers was not as energy-intensive, so you could afford to be connected to the grid. This next generation is going to require, in many cases, we think, unique power solutions. Finally, just to recap, hopefully, you see that we've been very focused on the natural gas value chain. Williams has established our set of infrastructure targeted to be irreplaceable and incredibly critical to provide reliable, affordable, clean, and increasingly quick and dispatchable energy infrastructure solutions. We've proven our ability to drive shareholder value. If you run the model going forward and you take a look at how we performed over the last five years, we would expect impressive growth to not only continue, but look even brighter than it has over the last really great five years. That's kind of the Williams story as far as the slides go.
Beyond that, I wanted to open it up for Q&A.
You have a great profile in front of you as a natural gas pure play. Being around the industry for a long time, I remember when natural gas wasn't so popular and other parts of the energy value chain were popular. Do you have any thoughts that maybe at some point in time you might want to diversify more into natural gas liquids or, God forbid, maybe even crude oil?
Yeah. Thanks. I mean, great question. What I would say, first, I would give a ton of credit to the team on really staying grounded in the fundamentals. What has driven our strategy has not necessarily been what's always been popular, but it has been really an attempt to focus on what we believe to be the fundamentals that would drive long-term sustainable business performance. Natural gas certainly fits, we believe, that equation the best today here and now. Williams has been in business for now going on 120 years. The company has evolved many times during the history of that 120 years. It's taken some risks. It's had some ups and downs. We are absolutely focused on delivering the here and now, the next generation of opportunities.
The great news is you can see there are no holes to fill from a strategy perspective, at least for what we see as the next 5 to 10 years. That does mean, though, that we can be patient. We can be opportunistic. We're already thinking about, are we well enough positioned for the next generation of opportunities even into the 2030s? One of the great benefits of having projects and opportunities crystallizing through the end of the decade is we're already thinking about how to position the company for the next generation of opportunities. Today, we still think natural gas has a tremendous amount of runway. We don't feel the need to significantly diversify. We have increased our scale on the natural gas liquid side of the equation.
Generally, you know I would say when we've looked at doing that through investment or even through acquisition, you know we've kind of had this oil at a higher price and natural gas at a lower price that's been affecting valuations. I kind of figured that natural gas has been in contango both from a fundamentals perspective and from an economic perspective. Frankly, oil has been in backwardation from an economic and a fundamentals perspective. I certainly would like to see better recognition and valuations of that fundamental. That's the fundamental view. Right now, we believe natural gas will be the most important solution for affordability, for reducing emissions, for reliability, backing up renewables, and now importantly, for meeting the need for speed, for energy, for the next generation of technology.
I don't believe there's a better technology available beyond natural gas that'll be the most important contributor to those key fundamentals. That's why we're going to stay grounded in natural gas today. If tomorrow we discover something that's a better, we think, fit for solving that equation, then we might start thinking about a broader strategy. The great news is today we see plenty of growth and investment opportunities within that window. We will continue to expand. I think power innovation is a great example of an adjacent opportunity set that we're capturing that still plays to our strengths. You know we'll continue to look at those opportunities. The great news is no holes to fill, and we can stay patient, be opportunistic, make sure that it makes sense. When you're investing at 20% plus return on invested capital, things have to compete with pretty attractive opportunities.
We need to make sure that we're driving into the very best opportunities.
Today, Mitsubishi Heavy announced their plans to double CCGT turbine capacity, which is great news. Can you talk about kind of turbine and CCGT capacity on the market, how that affects your growth plans, and particularly for power solutions? Obviously, you know the situation in Ohio, that $1.6 billion for 400 MW, pretty crazy number, but granted a temporary solution of speed to market there. Talk about like need to push back on power prices, both from the AI hyperscalers as well as the PX going forward.
Yeah. What I would say is, if you unwrap and peel some of the layers off the onion, I think over time it'll become a little bit more apparent. I actually don't think you're going to see with the solutions that we're delivering that big of a disconnect between grid cost structure and dedicated facility cost structure. There is the 400 MW, which is what we said is the delivered power, but we're installing a lot more than that. We expect there will be a lot more power generation value derived from that. Frankly, we'll approach grid costs with, in that particular situation, a coming to market years ahead of what it would have taken the grid to produce.
If you think about the life cycle of artificial intelligence development and technology development, we're going to deliver a lot more value because of our ability to unlock that need for speed. I also think over time you're going to see this challenge between the concern around affordability to the consumer. As we ramp up a new type of load to scale in the United States, the load profiles of these data centers are much more dynamic than what we've seen historically. That will put strain on grid resources, cause reliability concerns, and require additional investment. That will increase cost, and we need to make sure that's not increasing cost to the consumer. There will also be a concern about reliability.
I do think our target is to provide grid quality or better reliability at competitive costs, certainly when you factor in the speed to market and the ability to design a system uniquely for the end use. I think that's also something that gets lost. A lot of what we're doing with our customers is truly designing our power solution in combination with their programming, their software, their rack designs. These are going to be integrated systems that are going to be tailor-made for these facilities. In many cases, large energy input facilities want to control their energy input system because you can design it specifically for the end-use application. That's something that I think is going to continue to be better understood over time. I think it's been a real testament to our team that we've been able to put that solution together.
When it comes to turbines and turbine availability, our initial projects are primarily modular in our approach. I mean, we are one of the largest operators of simple cycle turbines here in the U.S. When you design for a unique facility, there are some advantages in having a more modular power solution for the facility. You know we'll see over time how that evolves. We are looking at projects with larger units, combined cycle units, but also pretty large aero derivative and simple cycle units are part of our project mix. We've secured enough inventory to see us through the next several years, we think, of the opportunities that we've talked about layering in. We feel pretty good about that. We've done a lot of work on the supply chain front.
I also think there are some units that have been out there that have been acquired that don't yet have homes. There is a lot of talk about the time for turbines. It's good to hear that Mitsubishi is expanding capacity. I think there is a risk in particular that larger frame units become more expensive. They already have if you look at the cost of turbines. A lot there to say for our specific projects, we're very focused on making sure we can have tailor-made solutions. We've secured inventory that I think we feel pretty good allows us to ramp our projects through these next several years. At that point, we see a loosening of supply chain, potentially a hybrid of the grid and the on-site colocation of equipment, a little more time to evolve that model. That's kind of where we are from how we look at it.
Yeah, it's clear that you take a long-term view of your business and think strategically long-term. If you look at what some of the hyperscalers have done, either investing in fourth-generation vision and in some cases even fusion, the expectation is that that will become real a lot sooner than we used to think. There are some suggestions that it will become cost-competitive. What do you think about the role of nuclear going forward and how might it affect your business?
Yeah, again, I think it's a great question, and we think about it. If you think about a solution that, if it became cost-competitive and it could achieve speed to market, nuclear would, you know, you've got to solve affordability. You've got to solve speed to market, but it certainly addresses the need for clean and the need for reliable. When we think about our strategy, again, it's anchored on those fundamentals. It's not anchored in any one product or any one technology. Our job is to keep our eye on, you know, we've kept a, we had a hydrogen team. We didn't invest ahead of it. We're not going to get ahead of us proving up the fundamentals around any energy solution. I've said this many times, you know, the company's been around for over 100 years. We weren't doing in 1925 what we're doing in 2025.
Our job is to make sure that we're a sustainable, growing, healthy company for the next 100 years. We're going to continue to keep an eye on those next-generation opportunities and technologies and position the company in a place of strength and an ability to move on those opportunities. The good news is we can have the patience to make sure we prove up those opportunities. We don't have a hole to fill. We don't have, you know, a strategic gap. I think that if nuclear scaled up rapidly and it became cost-competitive, it would absolutely compete with the solution that we're, you know, pursuing, which is affordable, reliable, clean, and now quick, dispatchable. We would be spending time understanding that.
We keep an eye on it already, but we would be spending time making sure that Williams is going to be an energy solution provider for a long time going forward. That's not to announce today that we're jumping into the nuclear space.
Hey, Chad, if I could just follow up with the 20% return that you've been able to achieve for the last five years. As you evaluate new projects, is that the hurdle rate that you're going to be looking at? How do you think about that going forward?
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's the hurdle rate, but I would just first point out that the single most impactful metric for executive compensation at Williams is return on invested capital. We are absolutely, and John , you know, is here, our CFO, you know, I think the best in the industry. Our job is to make sure we are driving the best shareholder return through how we allocate capital. We will take as many highly contracted, high-quality transmission power innovation projects as we can that achieve 20+% return on invested capital. I think we've got a pretty unique inventory and backlog of those types of projects. We've been blessed by both a great footprint, a good strategy, but also a team that is highly motivated to make sure that we can invest in very high-return projects.
I wouldn't call it a hurdle, but we're certainly looking for constantly those high-return opportunities. It's why you tend to see us play to our strengths, play to our footprint, whether it's an acquisition, a bolt-on. They have to compete with the same capital that we're putting into organic growth projects. It's why you tended to see us focus on opportunities that have a high degree of synergy and that can drive value through our value chain. You'll see even on our first power innovation project in Ohio, that project was initially kind of announced as a bit of an island. We established that project off our footprint using two third-party pipelines. Since then, we've actually contracted in our gathering business with producers and using Sequent Energy Management. We're going to be making pretty attractive margin in supplying the energy for that facility, even though we're using third-party pipelines.
Not only are we targeting good projects to start, but we're always looking for how we can kind of ratchet up the return on those projects. I wouldn't say it's a hurdle, but the expectation is that we can achieve as good, if not better, performance going forward than we have over the last 10 years, 5 years, sorry. All right. I think I'm done. Thanks, everybody.